In The Stars
by starlight15
Summary: Tenten: “I do not just think, or do, or act, or say; I am.”


1.  
Tenten likes to sing. She switches between soprano and alto, although it isn't because she has a stellar singing voice. She can hum a tune, find the right note, hold the same pitch, but none of it matters because when she sings, it's for the heck of it.

2.  
Tenten doesn't give out her family name. It isn't because she has none, or she's ashamed of it. It isn't because she was abandoned by her family, or raised by a single parent or sibling, as many have speculated. It isn't because she is a foreigner, or some distant descendant of royalty, as some of the more romantic villagers think. It isn't because she might belong to a travelling gypsy van, or circus train, or _any _of that, really.

Out of everyone, only Tenten knows and understands the implications of handing out her surname. She is judged before she is known, she is evaluated according to the status and recognition of her kinsmen, and she is marked before she has ever taken the test.

If everyone already knows what to expect of her, then how can she ever forge her own path?

3.  
In her free time, Tenten doesn't go to the weaponry market or train until she sees stars. Instead, she practices her flexibility and coordination through contortions and dance. It is the only graceful, feminine thing that she indulges in.

Before long, she is a skilled at twisting and manipulating her entire body into unthinkable positions. She sees the looks of disgust of others when they see her bending so she can touch the back of her head to the back of her knees, but when she flows through a kata of positions, all she can think of is how free she feels.

4.  
Tenten knows that the truth is a finicky thing, and shouldn't be trusted at all. What might be the truth to one person could be a poisonous lie to another.

She learns and knows that answers aren't what are important; rather, questions bear far more explanations then an answer ever could.

5.  
Tenten had always been mature, even when she was a small child. Somehow, she saw and understood things beyond how they presented themselves and, as a consequence, was able to act more accordingly.

She thought it fitting, years later upon reflection, that she _had_ to be in every possible aspect a polar opposite to Neji. Because despite his arrogance, aloofness, and iciness, he was the most immature, stubborn person she had ever met.

6.  
Tenten does, on occasion, take kunoichi missions (although the Godaime knows that she is usually a last resort because her skills are far, far, far better suited to other things).

Most people are under the impression that since Tenten acts like a tomboy 99.9 percent of the time, she doesn't know how to act like a proper girl. Au contraire, Tenten still keeps in touch with her feminine side. She does own skirts, heels, and make-up for the rare occasion of a party or a girls' night out and she does know how to use each item properly.

The seemingly unconscious grace needed for missions like these Tenten has already mastered. Her flexibility and dance exercises encourage that sort of thing and she is a naturally graceful person. (Although if Lee and Neji were pressed, they could come up with many, many, _many_ situations where graceful and Tenten strung in the same sentence would leave them convulsed with laughter. Or smirking, in Neji's case.)

The flirting, talking, and touching? Tenten would torch all of Konoha, take on Pein one-on-one, flirt with man-eating sharks, and jump down the deepest crevasse known to man before she admits to how she does those things so well.

Because in her mind, her target's eyes are white, his hair long and abnormally smooth and silky, and his forehead is marred with a mark of fate.

7.  
The first time Neji kisses her, it is in between sparring.

Tenten freezes. She pulls back slightly from her crouched position, gazing into Neji's apprehensive eyes.

"What do you want, Neji?"

It was a question spoken not in bitterness, suspicion, or jest, but of curious wonderment.

"I want a future with you," he replies. Then he hesitates, and adds, "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Tenten frowns, and straightens up.

"Only if that was what _you_ had wanted to say."

8.  
Training is one of the most satisfying activities in the world, Tenten thinks as she finishes up some solo training with taijutsu and ninjutsu. Especially after a spar or training session well spent.

After such a time, she just likes to collapse flat on her back onto the ground to let her body recuperate, mimicking Da Vinci's _Vitruvian Man_. The moments spent just reflecting or watching the sunlight play through the leaves of the trees are some of her fondest memories. She doesn't have to worry about missions, Neji, Lee, Gai-sensei, training, errands, or _anything_. All she has to do was let herself go and _relax._

This, she grins, is _true_ meditation.

9.  
While Tenten doesn't let her emotions rule her, she is afflicted with the same white-hot grip of determination as the rest of Konoha's shinobi.

When Temari whips her ass in five seconds flat, Tenten doesn't cry. As soon as she is discharged from the hospital, she immediately finds Gai-sensei and asks for his help on weapons and wind jutsus.

When Neji defeats her in sparring every single time the first week they train together (and consequently calling her _weak_ and a _disappointment_), Tenten bites the urge to slap him silly and cry in her bed (because it's _true_ and the truth _hurts_). Instead, she invents and discovers exercises to strengthen her mind, body, and chakra, and trains with such ferocity it makes Lee's flames of youth look like fireflies, and soon _she_ is the one whooping Neji's ass in sparring.

When she is at her last dregs of chakra with three enemy nin boring down on her during a C-ranked mission gone horribly wrong, she wearily takes out her scrolls and prepares to defend herself. Three seconds later, when she sees two more enemy-nin emerge and head towards an unconscious Lee, a chakra-drained Neji, and a broken-armed Gai, she is whipped into such a fury that when she calms down in the aftermath of the fight, all she can remember are blood and storms.

10.  
Out of all the women, Ino is the perfect model of a stereotypical kunoichi. She is the seductress, the prostitute, the geisha, the information gatherer, the killer who thinks nothing of sleeping with targets for information before slicing their throats. She excels in what she does and creates a name in her thankless career.

Sakura follows closely behind. She is a medic, another role expected of a kunoichi, though not so much as a whore. She is renowned for her skill, her luck, her compassion. But despite being legendary, she is still a medical kunoichi, still of a stereotypical mould.

Hinata is a bit of everything. She is a medic, a warrior, a leader (though _not_ and _never_ a prostitute. The Hyuuga wouldn't, will not, and will never stand to have their heiress lowered to such missions, to such a position). She excels in nothing in particular, but it is her uncommon mix of skills which makes her a fearsome thing to behold and therefore a formidable opponent. She, out of the women, is the one who tentatively starts carving a new path for the kunoichi.

It is Tenten who utterly and completely decimates everyone's belief of a stereotypical kunoichi. Flashing steel, deadly weapons, unnatural speed, uncanny accuracy, flying dragons, _this_ is what Tenten is known for. And while it is Ino's, Sakura's, and Hinata's names that are whispered reverently among people, it is Tenten's name that makes other people, other _kunoichi,_ think that they can be great in _any _path they choose.

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"I do not just think, or do, or act, or say; I _am_."

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**AN:** I started this just to get my creative juices together. That, coupled with some reflection on Tenten's character led me to this. Weird, no? I might follow it up with some of the other kunoichi…


End file.
